Can you hurt your shoulder in a car accident?
Injuries to the shoulder are one of the most common injuries that people can suffer in motor vehicle accident.
One of the reasons for this is that the shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the human body. It is made up of bones, muscles, tendons and cartilage.
It is comprised of three main bones, being the collarbone, the upper arm bone and the shoulder blade.
The shoulder joint itself is formed by the upper arm connecting to the shoulder blade with a socket and ball joint.
This joint can be quite susceptible to injuries and damage.
The violent movement involved in many car accidents can wreak havoc on shoulder joints.
Shoulder injury from side impact car accident
An impact at the front of your vehicle can cause your body to move forward violently.
Impact from the side because your body to move towards the point of impact which can sometimes cause the shoulder to strike the door of the vehicle. This is a common way in which injuries to the shoulders in motor vehicle accidents can occur.
Another possible cause of shoulder injdury is as a result of bracing with the arm extended. If you are a driver, this can happen because you grip the steering wheel tightly upon impact causing the arm muscles to tense to resist the force of the impact. However, the shoulder joint is usually not strong enough to with stand the forces involved in a car accident.
If you injured your shoulder as a passenger, sometimes passengers can brace using the hand on something at the front like the dashboard or the car seat.
Causes of car accident shoulder pain
The following shoulder injuries can vary from minor injuries to severe ones.
If you suffered a shoulder injury after a car accident, even if the pain is minimal, you should at least seek treatment initially as soon as you can to ensure that there is no serious damage to the shoulder and to prevent any symptoms that you may have from getting worse.
The pain in your shoulder after a car accident could be anything from a simple sprain to muscular skeletal injuries or even a dislocation or a torn rotator cuff.
Rotator cuff shoulder injury
The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons that hold the shoulder together. It is a critical component to the proper functioning of the shoulder.
The rotator cuff is a group of muscles that attach the humorous to the shoulder blade. It is responsible for helping to lift and rotate the arm.
Signs of a torn rotator cuff can include pain when trying to move the shoulder in a certain way, pain when lying on the injured arm and or shoulder and a weakness when trying to lift the arm.
If you have a shoulder injury that involves damage to the rotator cuff, you may have difficulty carrying out basic every day activities such as house work.
Fractures
Motor vehicle accidents can sometimes cause the bones in your shoulder to break or fracture as a consequence of the impact. If you have fractured or broken bones in your shoulder he will likely experience pain caused by movement as well as tenderness and swelling around the break site.
Impingement
Excessive rubbing between the top of the shoulder blade and the muscles in the shoulder joint can cause impingement. This is something that can cause quite a bit of pain.
Shoulder impingement can be diagnosed with an MRI.
Dislocation of the shoulder
A dislocated shoulder involves your upper arm bone popping out of the socket that is part of your shoulder blade.
Soft tissue damage
Soft tissue damage after a motor vehicle accident can be quite common. Trauma from a car accident can sometimes lead to a tearing in the shoulder.
Depending upon the severity of the tear your doctor may recommend referral to a specialist to consider surgical intervention.
Shoulder pain can impact many aspects of your life.
A reduction in the ability to move your arm and shoulder can make it difficult to function and to perform simple every day tasks.
If shoulder pain following a car accident isn’t treated properly, it can lead to chronic issues.
Diagnosing a shoulder injury after an accident
If you’ve been involved in a motor vehicle accident and you have shoulder pain you should speak to your doctor as soon as possible.
Depending upon the nature of the injury, it can take some time for shoulder pain to settle.
Some shoulder injuries, like a sprain can take weeks to resolve. Other shoulder injuries can take months or can even be permanent.
If you have a shoulder injury that persists after an accident, your doctor will likely refer you off for some type of scan. This may be an MRI, CT or an x-ray.
Depending upon the nature of the injury will depend upon what treatment your doctor recommends.
For example, the doctor may recommend that you undergo a period of manual therapy such as physiotherapy or osteopathy treatment to see if that works.
Your doctor may recommend referral to a specialist to consider surgical intervention. Another common course of treatment for shoulder injuries is for injection of cortisone into the shoulder. This obviously depends upon the nature of the injury.
If a shoulder injury is left untreated, it could cause issues down the track for you. Any shoulder injury has the potential to cause long-term symptoms as well as complications if it isn’t treated properly as early as possible.
Shoulder injury car accident compensation (Vic)
If you were injured in a motor vehicle accident in the state of Victoria, the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) may be able to pay you compensation.
You may have an entitlement to the following;
Medical and like expenses relating to the treatment of your shoulder injury
Once you have an accepted TAC claim, the TAC will be responsible for paying you the reasonable costs of any medical and like expenses that you may need to treat your shoulder injury, as well as any other injuries that you sustained in the accident.
A typical list of the things that people who have suffered a shoulder injury in a motor vehicle accident claim are;
- Attendance upon their GP
- Travel expenses to and from their medical appointments
- Medication expenses
- MRI
- CT
- X-rays
- Ambulance services
- Physiotherapy treatment
- Pain management programs
- Surgery expenses
- Home help and gardening services
Income replacement benefits
If as a consequence of your shoulder injury you are not able to work or alternative your ability to work is impacted (ie: you are capable of some work but not to the extent you were able to work pre accident), then the TAC is able to pay you income benefits.
How do these income benefits work?
After the accident for the first 18 months, the TAC will pay you what is called loss of earnings benefits. The total amount that they are able to pay you during this period on a weekly basis is a maximum of $1430.
If you’re not able to work at all because of the shoulder injury that you suffered in the motor vehicle accident, the TAC will pay you 80% of what’s called your pre-injury average weekly earnings. Basically this figure is the average of what you earned in the 12 months immediately before the accident.
If you suffer a partial loss of earnings as a consequence of the shoulder injury, and the TAC will pay you 85% of the difference between what you are currently earning after the accident and your pre-accident income.
If you have a dependent on more than one dependent, the TAC will pay you further on top of this amount.
After 18 months, the payments that you received to cover income loss change into what’s called loss of earning capacity benefits.
If you have a total loss of earning capacity after 10 months after the accident, then the TAC will pay you 80% of your pre-injury average earning capacity.
If you have a partial loss of earning capacity, then the TAC is able to pay you 85% of the difference between your pre-injury earning capacity and your post injury earning capacity.
As mentioned above, if there are dependence than these figures can be added to.
Usually, in most cases, the TAC will pay income replacement benefits for three years post accident.
However in some cases they are able to pay income replacement benefits Addition to this period. This is if you have a greater than 50% whole person impairment rating.
This impairment rating relate to your impairment claim which is discussed further below.
Impairment benefit claim for shoulder injury
This is a lump sum claim that you are able to pursue if you suffered a permanent impairment to your shoulder or another injury in the car accident.
People are able to pursue an impairment benefit regardless as to whether someone else was at fault for the accident or not.
In order to pursue an impairment benefit relating to your shoulder injury, the injury needs to be considered stable. This means that it has played out and it is not really improving or getting worse. The guidelines to win an injury to the shoulder is stable is months after the accident.
Sometimes this period can be extended particularly if surgery to the shoulder is required.
The process for an impairment benefit involves having your shoulder and any other injuries that you suffered in the accident assessed by specialist doctors who have undergone training in the grading of injuries for the purposes of compensation matters.
These doctors will put figures on your shoulder injury and any other injuries that you suffered.
These figures will then get combined into one overall figure. This overall figure then corresponds to a set compensation amount.
Generally speaking for a shoulder injury, you can expect to receive somewhere between $8040 and $43,540. This is a rough estimation and in some cases the impairment benefit may warrant more than this amount.
In order to be entitled to an impairment benefit for a shoulder injury you must be assessed as having 11% or greater whole person impairment rating. And 11% whole person impairment rating would entitle you to $8040.
Common law damages claim for shoulder injury
This is the second lump sum that is open to a person to pursue under the TAC scheme.
Unlike the above three entitlements however, in order to succeed in a common-law claim for damages relating to your shoulder injury, you must show that someone else was at fault for the accident.
If you are not able to show that someone else was at fault for the accident, then you will not succeed in a common law claim for damages.
The second thing that you must show to succeed in a common law and for damages relating to your shoulder injury is that you have suffered a serious injury. This is a legal term.
There are two general ways that you can show that you have a serious injury that relates to your shoulder.
The first way is the most common way. It is via what’s called the narrative test. Basically this involves telling your story about how your shoulder injury impacts your life.
What can you no longer do? What do you now struggle to do? Do you obtain regular treatment? Do you have difficulty sleeping? Do you have difficulty engaging in sports?
Basically you need to consider how you were before the injury and how you are after the shoulder injury and compare the difference between the two. The bigger the difference between then and now, the more likely your shoulder injury is to be classed as a serious injury.
The second way that you can show that you have a serious injury is if you were assessed as having a 30% or greater whole person impairment rating related to your impairment claim, as referred to above.
Keep in mind that a shoulder injury in and of itself generally speaking will not rate higher than 30%. However, if you have other injuries that you suffered in the accident, these can be combined with the shoulder injury giving you a greater chance of reaching the 30% threshold and being classed as having a serious injury.
In terms of compensation under a common law claim for damages for a shoulder injury, in a general sense the more the shoulder injury impacts your life, the greater the compensation amount.
You can be compensated for both pain and suffering and loss of earnings.
To give you a rough idea as to what you may expect by way of a pain and suffering payment for a shoulder injury, it can range anywhere from $80,000-$300,000, depending upon the severity of the injury and other factors such as whether you in someway contributed to the accident.
In terms of getting compensated for loss of earnings following a shoulder injury, this depends entirely upon the impact that your shoulder injury has had on your ability to work and will have into the future.